Navy SEAL Team Six founder Richard Marcinko to be honored in Birmingham

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama -- Founder and former commander of the Navy's SEAL Team Six that was responsible for killing Osama Bin Laden is being honored at Alabama Sports Festival this weekend with the games' Healing Hands award.

Richard Marcinko, 70, founded the elite counter-terrorist team in 1980. He served two tours in Vietnam as a SEAL and is a highly decorated former-special operations forces commander.

He has received the Silver Star, four Bronze Stars with a Combat V, two Navy Commendation Medals and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry with Silver Star. He and his team became such a threat during the Vietnam War that the Viet Cong posted a reward of 50,000 piasters for his death.

The success of Marcinko's national best-selling autobiography, "Rogue Warrior," led him to author a fictional series, with the same title, featuring Marcinko as its main character. The books focus on his fictional military exploits around the world. Now, he is also the head of Red Cell International Corp., a private security company.

Marcinko will sign books from his "Rogue Warrior" series and answer questions today at 2 p.m. at Books-A-Million at Colonial Brookwood Village in Homewood. His latest book is "Domino Theory" released earlier this year.

He will be honored tonight at the Alabama Sports Festival, which opens at 7 p.m. at the BJCC Arena. Admission is free to the public.

In an interview Thursday, Marcinko talked about Bin Laden's death and current United States military operations overseas.

Q. What was your reaction to the taking down of Osama Bin Laden?

A. I think it's closure in that we finally got the guy for 9/11. We finally knocked off a symbolic leader for al-Qaida. Do I think that means that it's the end? Not only no, but hell no. Al-Qaida now is like a franchise organization. The way he was killed and the way they buried him, strategically was good thinking. It would not have been my choice of doing it.

Q. How would you have done it?

A. I would have cut off his head and wrapped it in pig's skin and blood ... Play by their rules. It was smarter for the rest of the world to understand and do it the way they did. The fact that they buried him at sea means there's no longer a piece of turf somewhere where they can marshal on every anniversary.

Q. What did you think about the celebrations that took place in the United States?

A. I think the United States needed a lift. The economy is bad. We didn't have anything to thump our chest about. I don't think it was a disgrace. I'm sure that there were followers of Bin Laden that viewed it as that, but I'll flip the coin. What did you see in the media after 9/11 in the Muslim countries? Was it OK for them and not for us? I think America needed a celebration.

Q. In one of your books, "Domino Theory," you wrote, "Eyes in the skies are never a substitute for boots on the ground." Do you feel that way about technology in today's warfare?

A. Certainly. Let's take this operation we've been using as a focus. Why didn't we use a smart bomb? Why didn't we use a drone? We would have faced the problem of collateral damage because it was right next to a Pakistani military school. More importantly there will always be the query, "Did we really get him? Was it really him?" So you needed to be there on the ground, put your finger in the hole to say I got him, that's really him.

Q. What do you think about, what many have said, is America's role as policeman in the world?

A. Would you rather have us fighting terrorism here in the streets of Birmingham, Atlanta, Washington, D.C., where collateral damage is surely going to happen? I say let's do it over there. If you want to do an anti-submarine (operation) get it before it leaves the submarine pen; that's the easiest place to get them. Getting them over there, if it takes being the policeman then I say do it.

Q. How did you make the transition from being a special operations forces commander to writing your own autobiography, then turning it into a fictional series?

A. It gives me a vehicle now to identify to the public in a fictional role the vulnerabilities of different kinds of targets. Is it fiction or prediction?

Q. With all of your experience and expertise do you still advise military commanders?

Richard Marcinko, aka 'Rogue Warrior" on the war on terrorRichard Marcinko the founder and former commander of the NAVY's SEAL Team Six, the group responsible for killing Osama Bin Laden, is being awarded the Healing Hands award from the Alabama Sports Festival on Friday. He shares his views on the ongoing war on terror in Afghanistan and Iraq.